Glasser – Interiors

Cameron Mesirow's second album is finely balanced between assuredness and vulnerability

This is Cameron Mesirow aka Glasser’s sophomore full-length release, following 2010’s masterfully mesmeric Ring, an album which presented a seemingly fully-formed young artist, already able to combine true originality with a beguiling and listenable sound. Even then, Mesirow was very clearly one of those musicians with their sights set high and on doing very much what they wanted – so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that she’s chosen to follow up with a concept album (about home, buildings, aesthetics and the objects we surround ourselves with – in short, interiors), but one that never succumbs to that frequent concept-album malaise of being dragged down into clumsiness by the weight of its ideas.

Interiors is less immediately accessible than its predecessor, but ultimately just as rewarding, revealing surprising layers of sounds amid the electronic swirl and swish – as much as it’s about home, there’s definitely an exotic, jungly theme running through this record, culminating in the chirrups, clicks and twitters of penultimate track ‘New Year’.

‘Shape’ is the opener and also the first track from the album to be made public; it’s a stately, meditative introduction that draws ear and mind irresistibly into a new directness not previously seen from Glasser, albeit one coated in often coated in poetic metaphor – the themes of shapes, spaces and the protection or claustrophobia offered by homes of all kinds loom large. The star attraction is Mesirow’s bell-like vocal, the crowning glory of a sweet, clean sound, totally poised but fraying at the edges to reveal emotion just often enough to prevent any ice-queen characterisations. It’s that balance between assuredness and vulnerability, between poise and cutting loose that makes this such an appealing album, and both its sound and its ideas are characterised by an admirable lightness of touch that can only bode well for the musical future of Cameron Mesirow.